Friday, September 12, 2008

The other morning I found McKenna in her crib in the morning completely naked. Yesterday, when I got her up from her nap she wasn't wearing a shirt, and this morning she had one arm out of her jammies. I think we have begun the battle to keep clothes on...

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

1/4 Century Celebration

Yesterday was my birthday, and yes I have reached my 1/4 century mark. I have to admit, I feel like I should already be at least 25 by now. I don't know if that's normal...but I definitely feel older than I actually am. But the past 25 years have definitely treated me well and I am very grateful.

My birthday celebrations were perfect. My birthday started off great at midnight with "Happy Birthday" sung to me by some of our great friends. Later that morning, after our night's sleep, Katie had preschool so McKenna and I had some quality time together. I really have been loving McKenna time. She is such a fun little girl and I love being her mom. After we picked Katie up from preschool, we met my brother Brian on BYU campus for lunch. He took us out on his Dining Plus card - to the Skyroom - which was awesome, very thoughtful, and brought back a lot of really great memories. He also got me an awesome shirt from the Kenny Chesney concert he went to. The shirt says "She comes from Boston." I LOVE IT (and am wearing it in the pictures below). That trip to BYU was a little tiring for us all, so me and the girls went home for an afternoon nap.
That night we had THIS:

and only this for dinner. That's all I wanted (gotta love pregnancy cravings). Nothing else sounded good - I just wanted to fill up on steak. Haha. It was great.

I was sporting my lovely Pink Eye for my birthday pictures (gross, I know). Thought it was worth documenting both occasions :)

The girls helping me blow out my candles. Steak and cake = perfect birthday meal :)

This cracked me up. Before we even cut the cake the girls had already stuck the fingers in it and McKenna's face was instantly covered (of course). When I told her to say "cheese" for the camera she looked up at me and said "CAKE!" It was hilarious.

The night ended with some catching up on some of my favorite shows that we had DVR-ed. Perfectly relaxing evening. It was great. I was very excited about my WONDERFUL gifts from hubby, moms, and friends, and birthday wishes from everyone. I felt very loved and remembered. Thank you so much for making my birthday special!

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Family Reunion Provo/St. George

So, as I was uploading my pictures, I realized that I don't have a single picture from the Hopkin Family reunion last week. Unbelievable! I know my mom took some pictures, thank goodness, because I apparently have none.

Our family fun continued after our trip to San Jose, when my parents, my sister Jen and her family, and my brother Brian all came out to Utah. So fun! We had some time with my parents alone the first week. We went to Cascade Springs, the park, walked by the river, and had fun. Our girls LOVE grandparents! And how lucky that they got to see all four in one month!

Then Jen, Luis, Elena, and Sofia came and boy was that fun too. The cousins had a blast together. It was especially fun watching McKenna and Sofia run around together and have "conversations." We all went to St. George for the weekend for the Hopkin Family Society Board Meeting. Our family wasn't officially part of the board this year, but we couldn't resist the opportunity to be with family and to see Les Miserables. We also were able to visit our great friends the Baileys who live down there. We miss them so much and were happy to see them, even though it was very short. It was a great trip, St. George is beautiful and fun, but man was it HOT. I have a whole new concept of what it means to be hot outside. Provo feels cool compared to St. George!

When we got back from St. George, we still had a week of family fun. Brian came into town that Sunday that we returned. He's heading out here for school - started BYU this week. I am SO EXCITED to have a sibling here again and psyched for time to hang out with Brian. Hopefully I will be able to bribe him enough with food to come see us often.

All in all it was WONDERFUL to have family here just as it was WONDERFUL to be able to visit the rest of our family the week before. It almost felt like we were all actually living close to family for a while there - boy would that be nice. I'm excited that we will be getting another family visit next week from my brother Dan and his son Taylor. We love their visits too and are excited to see them.

Anyone else wanna come visit? If we plan it right, we could have family around almost every weekend, or every other. We would love it!!!

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Family Reunion in San Jose

We had a fun Jensen Family reunion in San Jose this past August and for some reason I am just uploading the pictures of the trip onto my computer now. That just goes to show how busy this month has been and how quickly time has flown by! So, finally I am blogging about our trip to San Jose.

The reunion was so much fun. Everyone (minus Elder Steve of course) was there. We had a great time catching up with everyone, including cousins, Aunts & Uncles, and friends. Everytime we are around family we wish we lived closer to everyone and could get together more often. Once or twice a year just isn't enough.

We had a fun reunion day on Wednesday while we were there. Grandma planned a fun water game for the kids, we had a family dance, swimming, and then had a yummy BBQ and family night. It was perfect and felt really good to just be together.




Dave was able to go visit his best friend Jason Honey and his family in Roseville. This is the girls with their cute son Jacob.

On Monday of our trip (sorry for the mixed up chronology) we went to the Children Discovery Museum in downtown San Jose with Grandma. The museum was prefect for our girls. Every exhibit they loved. We spent most of our time in the water station. Both girls loved it. It was a blast!

Everyone with the purple museum with the Alice & Wonderland rabbit

The bubble station was a huge hit
Tea party in Alice & Wonderland exhibit
McKenna LOVED the rabbit hole. She could've crawled back and forth all day.

The Beach!

When we were in San Jose we had a chance to go to a beach in Santa Cruz. It was so fun!! We don't get to go to the beach often so it really was a treat. This was McKenna's first time, and it had been a long time since Katie has gone - she may not even remember ever going. It was a little chilly so we didn't swim, but we had a blast playing in the sand, collecting shells, and walking in the water.
Happy girls!

Very rare family photo op


Even if it was 150 degrees, I'm not sure I would've wanted to swim in that...
There were an insane amount of birds!


This video is priceless to me. McKenna's first time at the beach, first time feeling sand on her feet, and first time seeing the ocean. She was a little unsure at first, but quickly loved it.